Shamsur Rahman Faruqi’s The Mirror of Beauty narrates the story of Wazir Khanam, the mother of famous poet Dagh, who at 15 eloped with an Englishman and made her own choices. This was in the 18th century. The author talks to Divya Kaushik about a Delhi that was not that medieval
Being the famous poet Dagh’s mother is not the only identity that Wazir Khanam deserves. She was one of those rare women in the 18th century who didn’t follow stereotypes, made her own choices and was intelligent enough to know how to use her charm and free-spiritedness to her advantage. She was crafty and dispelled the notion that women in purdah were oppressed, docile or unable to influence men.
Born to a craftsman, Khanam eloped with an Englishman, Marston Blake, when she was about 15. But as fate would have it, her husband was murdered and she had to return to Delhi with their two children. She then married Nawab Shamsuddin Ahmad Khan, but that wasn’t an end of her dalliances and affairs, none of which ends on a happy note. A woman who believed in savouring life by the moment, Khanam never let herself be circumscribed by societal expectations. Her story is woven in a fictional format in the book, The Mirror of Beauty (Penguin) by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi. It is an English translation of his Urdu novel Kai Chand the Sar-e-Aasman. Apart from bringing to readers a flesh and blood Khanam, in the fullness of womanhood, the novel presents what Delhi was in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
The acclaimed author and poet says that Khanam may have been a rarity in those times but she stands as an example to those people who only like to believe that women in India were not allowed to make their own decisions. “Dagh, of course, is a known figure and a maligned poet. Many say that he was a frivolous writer and his songs were sung by tawaifs (courtesans). So the description of his mother was confined to just one or two lines. That too she was not described charitably, often referred to as very clever, a gold digger and of questionable character. But the novel shows there were other women like her who stood up for themselves to be counted despite social diktats. There was the grand daughter of Shah Alam, who was married to the son of Nawab of Awadh, but who ran away with William Gardner to lead a happy life,” informed the author. His work might sound like a historical novel, but “it is a cultural recall.”
We have examples from the history like Jahanara Begum Sahib, eldest daughter of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, who made a significant impact on the landscape of the capital city of Shahjahanabad. She took an active part in looking after the poor and financing the building of mosques and wise. But examples like Khanam are less.
Faruqi added that Delhi had its days of decline post the Mughal downfall, but it cannot be termed as a shattered era. “People keep talking about the people who left Delhi but we need to understand why they came to Delhi in the first place. There were people travelling even in that era in the absence of proper means of transport to Delhi, because it was not just a power but a cultural capital as well. It was not a shattered city, whose spoils Nadir Shah plundered. Suppose you were born 100 years later and read present-day papers, you would think that India was strife-torn. But we have an evolving cultural and social space which doesn’t make to the footnotes of history simply because it cannot be defined by a dated event. Same is the case with 17th and 18th century Delhi. I do not agree with the leftist theory that suggests that the British were an unconscious tool of history who brought modernism to India. What a pity that we believe in this! I ask who was the tool of history in JapanIJ How did Japan come close to defeating America — if they had not dropped the atom bomb in Nagasaki they might have won the war. We have a rich, layered history. But I did not want to produce a catalogue of facts. I am a writer, therefore I chose to write fiction,” explained Faruqi, who was inspired by AS Byatt’s Possession, by her command over detail and by her mastery over the rhythms and patterns of English prose and verse of the mid-19th century. She had mastered the flow of language of her chosen time. Faruqi knew he could not do it for English, but could certainly do the same for Urdu. His first story in fiction was published under an assumed name. Its critical acclaim led to three other stories — Savar, In Subhaton Mein Akhir and Aftab-e-Zamin. After writing short stories, writing novels was a gradual progression for Faruqi.
His fiction has Dastan-e-Amir Hamza as the only source of inspiration. Dastan-e-Amir Hamza narrates the legendary exploits of Amir Hamza. In the West the work is best known for the illustrated manuscript commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Akbar in about 1562.
The author explained that dastan or the oral tradition of storytelling, particularly romance, is described as the “tradition which helps in taking the legacy forward. The written word is a dead text.” Therefore, he wanted to read more about it and work on it.
“Frances Pritchett, my friend and professor of Columbia, presented the first four volumes of the Tilism-e-Hoshruba, the best known of stories. I knew this was a world-class treasury of narrative and was sad that the Urdu literary community had brushed this tradition under the carpet. I decided to first study and then work on the Dastan. But there wasn’t a single library in the world which possessed all 46 individual volumes — over 1000 pages per volume. After an extensive search I managed to own every volume. Then I moved on to fiction and writing novels. I did not have to do any research for my works as I was well-equipped with the facts, thanks to over 20 years of reading,” he shared.
Faruqi concluded that in the present day, “We don’t have a dearth of Urdu readers but we lack Urdu teachers who can guide students.”
He hopes that his book will take you on an epic journey and will give an insight into the craft of miniature painting, the art of carpet designing and recurring paintings of mysterious, alluring women.